Comparison

MindWoods vs Minds

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

MindWoods

Organize your thoughts and creative projects with a visual canvas. Connect ideas, add notes and images, and customize your workspace. Export your work in various formats.

Highlights
  • Visual mind mapping
  • Illustrated journaling
  • Project planning
  • Sketch collection
  • Customizable canvas
  • Multiple export formats
  • Idea organization
Features
Read full description

Give your ideas room to grow with MindWoods. Make a mind map, keep an illustrated journal, plan a project, or collect sketches and inspiration in a garden of connected ideas. WRITE, READ, AND CONNECT Start with a title, then add notes and images. Arrange idea cards on the canvas, connect them with named relationships, and return to the full text when you want to read or edit. Batch entry helps you capture several ideas at once. MAKE THE CANVAS YOURS Combine notes with photo and hand-drawn stickers. Reuse creations from your personal sticker library, pair stickers with ideas, group objects, and organize their stacking order. Choose a theme and customize the toolbar around the tools you use most. Style each idea with classic or handwritten fonts, bold, italic, card colors and three levels, then let Auto Layout tidy up or arrange the garden by level. KEEP ORGANIZING Search your ideas, start from a template, and use garden history and the recycle bin to revisit earlier versions or recover content. EXPORT YOUR WORK Share a canvas as PNG, export a PDF with a canvas overview and complete notes, or use Markdown and JSON exports to take your work with you. START FREE, ADD PRO WHEN YOU NEED IT Free creation includes two gardens with unlimited ideas in each, up to ten hand-drawn works kept at a time, and selected templates. All themes, export formats, basic iCloud features, stickers and photos are free. MindWoods Pro is a one-time in-app purchase, with no subscription. It adds unlimited gardens and drawings, all templates, Markdown import, and on-device model summaries on supported devices. No MindWoods account is required. iCloud features require signing in to iCloud and enabling iCloud Drive in system settings. Model summaries also depend on the system version, device, region, language, and Apple Intelligence availability.

About

Minds

Features
Read full description

Speak it, snap it, or type it. Capture ideas by text, voice, or photo (OCR), and organize them into a clean mind map. Minds is a simple, lightweight, and completely free mind map app. ■ Three ways to capture — effortless Beyond the keyboard, jot ideas by voice or pull text from a photo with OCR. Get thoughts down without breaking your flow. ■ Clear and organized Nodes are auto-arranged into a tidy tree. Color-code, zoom/pan, and collapse subtrees to keep even large maps clean. ■ Search and export Tag items (with colors) and search across all your maps. Export to Markdown to move your work into other tools. ■ AI for a quick first draft (optional) If you like, generate a starter map from a conversation with AI — handy for brainstorming and planning drafts. ・Completely free ・Data stays on your device; iCloud sync is optional ・Works on iPhone, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro ・Great for organizing thoughts, brainstorming, meeting notes, and study Turn what's in your head into a map — just by speaking or snapping. *The optional AI generation feature requires your own API key for the AI service you use (Claude / OpenAI). The app itself and its core features are free and need no setup.

Screenshots

MindWoods4 screens
Minds4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: MindWoods at none against Minds's shown. Minds's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MindWoods ships an update every 8 days, Minds every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
MindWoods versus Minds: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMindWoodsMinds
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 8 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size18 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerwu zhaodongJun Tsuda

In-app purchases

None

MindWoods

No in-app purchases

None

Minds

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is MindWoods free?
MindWoods is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Minds free?
Minds is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do MindWoods or Minds have ads?
Minds shows ads; MindWoods does not.
Which is updated more often, MindWoods or Minds?
MindWoods ships an update every 8 days, and Minds every 2 days. Most recently, MindWoods was updated on November 5, 2026 and Minds on October 31, 2026.

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